


Dearheart

by elistaire



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Bogeyman, Community: spook_me, Gen, M/M, there are no warnings on this fic because warnings are far too complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-27
Updated: 2011-10-26
Packaged: 2017-10-25 00:04:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/269397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elistaire/pseuds/elistaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>A bogeyman dances around in our house….<br/>--folk song</i></p><p> </p><p>The Xavier Mansion holds a secret.  Twice already the bogeyman has tried to take away the occupants, but the door against it is barred from the inside...at least until it is opened again, much much later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2011 spook_me challenge.
> 
> [Link to the prompt](http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab353/spook_me/Spook%20Me%20Science%20Fiction%20Covers/SpookMe45.jpg)
> 
> A thank you to my very kind and fabulous beta Sylvaine.
> 
> Spoiler warnings in the notes at the bottom.

_A bogeyman dances around in our house….  
\--folk song_

 ~~~

“ _Come and be mine, little dearheart. There are fields to run through, just for you. Trees to climb. And games to play with other children. They’re waiting for you to join us. Friends forever and ever. We’ll dance and play, all the night and all the day. And I’ll love you forever more. Dearheart. Dearheart. Dearest heart of mine._ ”

Charles, feeling small and not very brave at all, pulled the covers up to his chin. He quivered. He wanted to say yes, he wanted to go. It sounded absolutely wonderful. But he was afraid. He’d heard voices in his head before, but never like this, and he just didn’t know.

Slowly he pushed the covers back and touched one toe to the floorboards.

“ _Little one, sleepy one, come rest in my arms. There’ll be treats for breakfast, and more for lunch. I’ll serve you a bedtime sweet in a little cup. How lovely you are, how like a sunshine ray. I’ll love you all your days. Come and be mine, little dearheart._ ”

“Yes?” Charles said, hesitantly. It sounded so much nicer than his life at the moment. His father was gone almost all the time, working, and his mother barely paid attention to him. Charles was always alone and he ached and hurt with the loneliness that echoed inside his chest.

“ _I’d hug you and kiss you, all the days of the year. Little sweet child, come and be mine._ ”

“Yes,” said Charles and he wiggled until both feet were on the ground and he was out of the bed. A thrill of excitement coursed through him, though he was just a little fearful, still unsure. He clutched the pillow to his chest. He wished it were a bear, but his mother disliked toy animals and had forbidden them. “I’ll come,” he said. “Forever, really?” he asked. “Where?”

“ _Here, then, dearheart. Just here, in my arms. A hug for you. The first of many._

There was a swirl of darkness in the middle of the room and Charles moved toward it, very slowly. He wanted this, but he was afraid. His mother would be so angry with him. He hated to make her angry. But to be _loved_! Oh, he wanted that so much. He could feel the love, really he could. It pulsed against him, calling him forward. It felt warm and sure, steady in a way he’d never known before

He stepped into the shadow and for a moment, it was icy-cold. Charles screamed, suddenly frightened, and the door to his room was flung open.

“Charles!” his father shouted, tall and familiar, and a heavy weight against the darkness, which fled at the touch of light that seeped in through the door.

“Don’t go!” Charles begged, calling for the voice to return. “I’ll be good, I promise. I didn’t mean to shout! Come back, please! Come back!” Charles started to cry. He shouldn’t have screamed—he’d frightened away the voice and now there would be no hugs, no treats, no forever love. It had only been cold for a moment, and Charles _had_ felt the warmth of arms surrounding him. It had called him _dearheart_. It must love him, it had to love him.

“Shh, Charles, it was just a nightmare.”

Charles sniffled and his father picked him up and gave him a swift hug, and deposited him back in his bed. “Dry those eyes, tough guy.” His father tucked him in, pulling up the covers. “Do you want me to leave a light on?”

Charles shook his head and his father did not look convinced. “Just tonight,” his father said, and Charles had the sudden fleeting idea that it was because his parents were tired of coming in to soothe him. Tired of being up at odd hours, dealing with an unsettled child. If his father left the light on, then he’d be able to sleep through the remainder of the night.

“I’m sorry,” Charles sniffled. “I’ll sleep now.”

“Okay then, champ,” his father said and leaned forward to kiss him on the forehead. “Be a good little guy and I’ll see you in the morning.” His father turned on a small lamp in the far corner of the room and it spread a weak yellow light.

Charles waited until his father was gone and then he slid out of bed and tiptoed to the light and turned it off. “Come back,” he whispered into the dark. “You said you loved me. Won’t you come back?” But it seemed his one chance had fled.

~~~

“Charles. Charles! Wake up!” Raven had a hand on each of his shoulders and was bouncing and shaking him.

“What? What is it?” he asked, coming awake as quickly as he could, though sleep was hard to shake off. It was still dark, pitch black outside the windows, and Raven looked absolutely terrified.

“I heard something,” she said.

“Oh,” Charles said. “A nightmare?”

“No,” she hissed, her eyes wide and frightened. “Something else.”

Charles yawned and wrapped a hand around Raven’s wrist and pulled her onto the bed fully. She’d been sleeping with him, on a bed meant for one person, because the guest rooms echoed with emptiness and neither of them liked having the other gone too long. It had also seemed easier to hide her in his room than trying to explain why the guest rooms were mucked with. Charles hadn’t yet quite figured out how to integrate Raven into the family on a permanent basis, even though he’d been taking care of the day to day arrangements with appropriate psychic pushes here and there.

“What was it?” he asked as she settled against him. She’d only been here a few weeks and already Charles found that he never wanted her to leave. Having a friend—a sister—was better than he could have even imagined.

“Someone was calling me. He wanted me to _go away_.” Raven plastered herself against Charles. “I don’t want to leave you,” she said.

“You don’t have to,” Charles told her. “You can stay with me as long as you want.”

“Yes,” said Raven, and she hugged him swiftly. “Thank you.”

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Charles said, and meant every word a hundred times over. “Do you think you can get back to sleep? It might have been me dreaming. Sometimes I forget when I’m sleeping, not to project.” He rubbed a hand through his hair and didn’t meet Raven’s eyes. “I don’t mean to.”

“I know.” Raven pulled the covers back and then slid under them. “You really think it was just you? It didn’t _sound_ like you.”

“Maybe just me,” Charles said. “I don’t know, I was asleep.” He smiled and Raven smiled back. She curled up facing away from Charles.

“Good night,” she said.

“Good night, Raven.” Charles closed his eyes and with Raven breathing quietly next to him, Charles felt happy, and drifted off.

“ _My little pretty ones. Come and play with me._ ”

Charles opened his eyes when Raven’s hand dug painfully at his arm, gripping him. “Charles,” she whispered. “Was that you?”

“ _The grass is very green here, little ones. My dearhearts. The water is very blue._ ”

“No. Not me,” Charles said. He reached up and took Raven’s hand, and they clasped fingers. Charles noticed that Raven’s fingers were as cold as ice.

“ _Won’t you come? There is sunlight and there are forests, deep and lovely. And songs to sing. A bonfire every night to keep you warm. Sweet ones, little ones, won’t you come with me? Won’t you come?_ ”

“Charles?” Raven asked. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know.” There was something familiar about the voice, but Charles couldn’t remember exactly. A faraway yearning thrummed through him. He’d wanted this, and it had been always beyond him. Not now, though. He leaned forward, ready to catch more of the words.

“ _Dearhearts, don’t be afraid. There are games to play, and other children to meet. You may swing from the apple trees. Swim in the bluest sea. And I will gather you to me, and love you forever._ ”

“Raven, we don’t have to stay here,” Charles said, and his yearning inched him forward, straining for more words. “We could go together. Always be together.”

“I don’t want to,” Raven whispered. “I think it’s a monster. It wants to _eat_ us. Don’t you remember the stories?”

“Stories?” Charles asked, not exactly listening. He was moving slowly, sliding toward the edge of the bed. Was there a shadow in the middle of the room? He thought he remembered now. He wouldn’t scream this time.

“How the witch ate children and goblins steal them away and sometimes fairies leave ugly babies in place of the real ones and ghosts will kiss you to death and you have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs or you’ll be lost in the forest! And if they take you, you only have twenty four hours to escape, or you’re trapped forever!”

Charles wanted to be lost in the forest forever, though. “Those are just to scare children so they won’t wander off with strangers,” Charles said. “None of that is real.”

“This _is_ real,” Raven said and clasped her hands around his upper arm again. “Don’t go, don’t go.”

 _Come play, little dearhearts. I will wrap you in hugs. You’ll never have to grow up, or grow old, or go away. You can play every day of the year. Dearhearts, gentlehearts, little pretty ones._ ”

“You don’t even like playing,” Raven said, an edge of desperation creeping in. “You like reading. You _like_ school.”

“This isn’t about school. We won’t be different there. We won’t be _wrong_.” Charles tugged her along. He could barely catch his breath, he wanted this so badly. He remembered before—losing his chance, his opportunity. “You can be blue all the time! Come on, before he leaves. We’ll miss it.”

“I’m not going!” Raven tugged him back. “You can’t leave me. You promised!”

“Raven, please!” Charles was desperate, but he had promised. Wherever he went, it wouldn’t be without Raven. “Please. Come with me!”

“No.” Raven let Charles go and glared at him, arms crossed. “I’m not going, and you promised.”

Charles nodded, miserable. There wouldn’t be another chance, he knew. This had been it. “Raven….”

“No! It’s a trick! They say nice things and then they gobble you up. I won’t let them eat you! I’m not going and you aren’t either!”

“ _Lonely hearts, little ones, sweet child--_ ”

Raven covered her ears with her hands and stared at Charles until he did the same. Then she leaned forward and put her forehead against his. “Don’t listen,” she mouthed, and Charles pressed his hands harder against his ears until the yearning song was muddied and nonsense. He strained to listen, wanted to accept so terribly badly, and yet he had promised Raven, and that was more important than this draw he felt. Not going—it felt like the worst mistake of his life. But he’d promised-- _promised_.

 _I want to, I wish I could. Yes, yes, all I want to do is say yes, but I promised Raven, and she doesn’t want to go, so I have to say no,_ Charles tried to tell the indistinct smoke that seemed to harbor the voice.

For a moment, Charles wondered where his mother was. They’d been speaking so loudly, that he worried she would come in to see them. But no, a quick brush against her, and he realized she’d taken a sleeping pill and wouldn’t be coming to—

The room was suddenly swathed in darkness and Raven screamed. Charles felt strong arms gather him up. He kicked once in surprise and reached out to try and find Raven, but then all was darkness overtaking him. His head swam with dizziness and vertigo swamped him, and then everything whirled away into a pinprick, and he knew no more.

~~~ 


	2. Chapter 2

~~~

 

“Not that room, please.”

Erik looked up from where he’d been attempting to dislodge the lock on the door. Charles was approaching him, hands stuffed into his pockets, head tilted down in a slightly embarrassed, thoughtful, _edgy_ sort of way, and the hairs on the back of Erik’s neck prickled.

“Why?” Erik demanded. “What secrets are in here?” If Charles knew all about his innermost demons-- _everything_ , he’d said—then Erik wanted to know everything about Charles. In addition, Erik had wanted to be familiar with the mansion, just in case. Because just-in-case was always the most prudent way to go, and it had saved his neck more than once.

“We just…don’t go in there,” Charles said, and he raised his head to look Erik directly in the eyes. Erik would have trusted that wide-eyed, true-blue look, but for the hint of shadow that lay well behind the façade.

“Why?” Erik asked again. “There has to be a reason.”

Charles frowned in thought and then his expression grew blank and his gaze a bit distant. “No reason,” he finally said. “We just don’t.” He stood there for a moment, a barely discernable sway to his stance, and then he smiled. “It’s almost time for lunch. Are you hungry? Come along, then.” He turned and with a wave, beckoned Erik to follow him.

Erik stood for a moment, flabbergasted. Erik scowled at the door and the lock, but decided discretion would win the day a bit faster than brute force, so he acquiesced, and followed Charles downstairs to the kitchen. He would return later and find out what mysteries the room held.

Alex and Raven were already in the kitchen, making sandwiches, and Erik found that he was hungry.

“Where were you off to?” Raven asked lightly as she separated the pieces of cheese that were all stuck together.

Charles glanced to Erik. “Rescuing Erik from roaming around the mansion. He has an affinity for cobwebs, I think.”

“Roaming?” Raven asked, and Erik did not miss the tiny twitch of tension. “Roaming where?”

“The north wing,” Charles said, and even though it was thrown out there nonchalantly, it was anything but.

“Oh,” Raven said, and Erik noticed that twitch of tension again.

“North wing?” Alex asked, and Erik smiled. Alex was intuitive enough to pick up on these subtle emotions, and Erik waited to hear the answers to the questions he was forming himself.

“Yes, the north wing,” Erik said, stirring the pot. “Have you been over there?”

“No,” said Alex. “What’s in the north wing?”

“Nothing. Just storage. It’s all closed off,” Charles said blithely, waving it away as if it didn’t matter. “Dusty, unused. Old furniture, stored up with dust sheets.” He chuckled. “Probably we should have an estate auction and sell off the older pieces. We might be able to finance one of Hank’s jets for ourselves.”

“That’d be great,” Alex mused, and Erik watched as one last tight-eyed look was thrown by Raven to Charles, and the minutest of head-shakes was given, and the subject of the north wing was entirely brushed under the rug.

Erik waited until after lunch. Everyone else was occupied elsewhere and Erik had free reign to choose his course.

He approached Raven in the weight room, where she was pressing weights above her head right in front of the wide, broad windows that showed all the lovely greenness of the outdoors. He watched her for a minute before speaking.

“Raven?” he asked.

“Three more,” she grunted out, and Erik wandered the room as she pushed through three more. She was still in her not-blue, blonde-haired form, and Erik thought that a conversation about that would be forthcoming in the future. Right now, though, he wanted answers, and wasn’t going to muddy the waters with a discussion about matters that needed their own direct confrontation.

Raven sat up, done, and eyed Erik. She waited for him to speak. Probably she was wondering why he hadn’t just lifted the weights to the ceiling with his power, but Erik was trying to be tactful. He already knew the subject was touchy, and he’d press harder only if he needed to.

“The north wing,” Erik said.

“We don’t go in there,” Raven said, as if on automatic.

“Why?” he asked.

“It’s just…we don’t go in there,” Raven said again, and it felt like a recitation. She was holding his gaze very directly and Erik felt that uneasy prickling at the back of his neck again. Something was very, very curious about the north wing.

“Yes, I understand that,” Erik said slowly. “But I want to know _why_ we don’t go in there.”

“Because it’s…it’s….” Raven frowned. “It’s bad,” she finally whispered. She looked so pained, so uneasy, that Erik backed off.

“Okay,” he said. “Thanks.” He turned to leave.

Raven called out to him as he was exiting. “Please, Erik,” she said, as if she could read his mind, and tell that he was already planning to break into the space. “Don’t go in there. It would be very, very bad. If you even like Charles and I just a little bit. Trust us, and leave the north wing alone.” For once, her voice had lost the fogginess, and contained the clearness of reason, and the resonance struck Erik.

Whatever was curious about the north wing, both Raven and Charles knew it was _bad_ , but they didn’t want to remember—or _couldn’t_ remember—why.

It set all of Erik’s warning bells off, and he vowed that he would know what dangers were in that room. He didn’t want to sleep one more night under this roof without knowing what he had to deal with. It just wasn’t safe.

~~~

Erik waited until the house grew quiet. Then he waited another hour, just to be sure.

His evening chess game with Charles had been dissatisfying and short. Erik had stared over the board, pieces orchestrated in battle, and thought over Charles Xavier. He dressed sloppily, his hair was a mess, his eyes a hateful blue that reminded Erik of too many soldiers, and his entire world view was sugar-coated, and yet, none of it mattered. When Erik was with Charles, he wanted to believe a thousand impossible things before bedtime, and a hundred more by lunch. Charles was like one of those horribly ugly little figurines that grandmothers found appallingly endearing, and kept perched up on the top shelf, at once both safe from being knocked over, and with the longest distance to fall.

Where Charles was concerned, Erik was completely confused. He wanted to dislike him, to argue him into submission, but he also wanted-- Erik grit his teeth. He wanted this companionship, his very bones ached for it, yearning toward the gravitational pull of Charles’ orbit. The have and have-not of it was chaos on Erik’s mind and body, and threatened to bury him. Erik pulled his thoughts away from Charles by force.

Before anything else, he needed to assess the potential danger posed within the forbidden room.

Finally, when the clock told him it was half-past midnight, he left his room. It was eerie in the hallways, with the faint settling and creaking that old houses always do, and this house was particularly heavy and bulky, so it seemed to wheeze and stutter more than most. Every creak was like the crack of a shotgun, and Erik paused in the hallway, his heart pounding in his chest. He’d been on far more dangerous missions than this—a midnight journey to check out an old dusty room—and hadn’t been this full of adrenaline.

The house seemed to settle into a tentative silence as Erik approached the door. It was almost as if he could _feel_ the house holding its breath. That was too ridiculous, he thought, but it felt true.

He put his hand on the doorknob. There were two locking mechanisms there. The first was sturdy and solid, a part of the latch itself, and it posed no real difficulty. A moment’s concentration and it clicked open. The second lock, however, sent a chill down Erik’s spine. It was _on the other side of the door_ , as if someone had locked themselves in, and it fairly tingled at Erik’s mental touch, as if there was some _affinity_ there. Erik paused to consider it. It was a mixture of metal, although strong metal, as if someone had melted down a handgun, and although it was technically a lock, it was really more just soldering across the frame and onto the door. Someone meant for this door to _never_ be opened again.

Erik ran his fingers through the air, feeling the metal. It had been an extraordinary job by some metalsmith, or else Charles was lying about never before meeting another mutant with the ability to control metal.

It took only another moment of concentration to undo the band of metal. Erik took a deep breath, wondering what he would find and opened the door.

He blinked.

Empty. The room was completely empty.

He stepped over the threshold and looked around. There was a stone fireplace at the far end and the walls had oak wainscoting. It looked like every other room in the house, with thickly elaborate molding and a dark maple floor. There were windows set against the wall, elongated, with wide boards for window seating. But otherwise the room was bare. There were no andirons, no curtains, no pictures on the wall, no furniture. The room had a thin coating of dust—without anyone entering or exiting, there wouldn’t be much residue buildup.

Disappointed, Erik turned on his heel and closed the door. Erik replaced the soldered barrier. He wanted to leave the door exactly as he’d found it. Then, it took but a moment to relock the knob, which wouldn’t necessarily assure anyone that the room hadn’t been broken into, but it would keep the others out. Alex, Hank, and Sean, none of whom were the least bit investigative about the remainder of the house and grounds, preferred to live on in complete and dangerous ignorance. Erik pinched the bridge of his nose. It was not his place to teach these children how to survive.

Just to double check his memory, Erik paced to the next room over and opened the door. Unlocked, and the room held a cluster of things in the middle, all covered over with dust sheets. He closed the door and checked the next, and the next, and then randomly a few more. All had contents, and all were covered in sheets. It was just that one particular, _empty_ room that he’d been told not to go into. Because it was very, very bad.

What could be so bad about a room with nothing in it, Erik wondered.

Just the obnoxiously rich being eccentric, he supposed.

Perhaps there were bad memories in the room. He had the vaguest feeling that Charles and Raven’s childhoods had not been the idyllic ones he might have supposed. Fleeting shadows came into their eyes and faces whenever Erik pressed or teased either of them about growing up. And certainly neither of them appeared to love their childhood home. In fact, it seemed somewhat vaguely abhorrent to both of them, if Erik were to judge by their reaction to returning here.

He didn’t much care, anyway. He’d at least determined there was nothing of danger in the room, and he could rest easy now.

Erik returned to his room and slept.

~~~

“Where’s Charles?” Hank asked the next morning. “Has anyone seen him?”

“Nope,” said Alex.

“MIA,” said Sean as he put more than enough butter on his toast.

“He was supposed to meet me down in the lab before breakfast.” Hank shrugged. “Maybe he’s sleeping in.”

Raven giggled. “Probably too much _chess_ with Erik last night.” She waved a spoon at him, taunting him.

“No one is drinking too much,” Erik said stonily. He resented even the implication that he might be inebriated. He _never_ drank more than he could handle, because he had to be ready at any moment to respond. To escape, or to fight.

“You’re no fun,” Raven said with a sigh. “Stuff to do,” she said as she left, toast in hand.

“I also have a ton of work to do,” Hank said. “If anyone sees Charles, tell him I’m in the lab.”

“As if you’d be somewhere else?” Sean muttered and Hank flushed pink on his way out. Erik grinned into his coffee.

He finished the coffee and considered his options for the day. First order of business really was to find Charles. There was training to organize and serious discussions to have, and as much as Erik wanted to intimidate the hell out of Moira, it would be much more fruitful to have Charles there for that instead of trying to play go-between. Erik pushed back his chair and went out into the hall.

Erik stalked through the corridor to Charles’ room. He knocked politely, waited, and then went in. No Charles. He glanced around the room. The bed looked slept in, with the covers definitely mussed.

Perhaps he’d gone jogging. Erik went to the window and looked out. He stretched out his feeling for metal, searching. Charles usually had something on him that was metal. But Erik found nothing. If Charles was jogging, that might explain it, but even training sneakers had small metal grommets on them, and Erik didn’t imagine Charles would jog through breakfast.

He decided to check the study, even though he hadn’t felt the telltale sign of metal there. The study was empty, and Erik began to grow frustrated. Where would Charles have gone? He reached out—the car was still there, so that didn’t resolve the issue.

Damn it, Charles, he thought, where the hell are you hiding?

~~~

It wasn’t until lunch that frustration began to turn to worry.

“Hank, did you ever catch up with Charles?” Erik asked over his sandwich.

“No,” Hank lamented, “he never came up to the lab.”

Alex shook his head and Sean shrugged. “Moira hasn’t been around either,” he said, as if that explained everything. Erik knew that it didn’t. Moira had been in her room on the telephone, checking in with several different people as the repercussions of the attack on the CIA’s compound had started to reverberate more strongly through their organization. Erik was keeping a close eye on that, as it was only a matter of time before the mutants would be seen less as victims and more as scapegoats.

“No one’s seen him at all?” Raven asked. She was standing at the sink. Erik shook his head, as well as the others, and then he heard the clatter of a fork drop into the sink, and Raven breezed by them. “I forgot something,” she said. Erik watched her leave with a frown. He sipped his glass of water and patiently counted to a hundred before he got out of his chair.

“Be right back,” he said, and the others didn’t even look up.

He found her outside the door to the empty room. She had her ear to the door, listening, and one hand on the doorknob. Slowly she twisted her hand around it and the knob didn’t turn. She closed her eyes, trembled, and leaned against the door.

A small warning feeling thrummed through Erik. He stopped spying and came out from around the corner to approach her. “Why did you come here, if you thought Charles was missing?” he asked.

Raven startled, and then hugged her arms around herself. “I was just checking,” Raven said, her voice small, and awash with relief. “Only because you mentioned the room yesterday, I thought maybe…but I’m glad I’m wrong.” She pushed away from the door. “Charles must be out doing something, or in the attic digging something out. He’ll turn up.” She started to walk away.

“So he’s not hiding out in an empty room?” Erik asked to Raven’s retreating back.

Raven stopped, stock-still. She pivoted on one foot to face Erik. “How do you know the room is empty?” she asked.

“I looked.” Eric crossed his arms over his body. “You and Charles made such a big deal out of the room, I needed to check that it didn’t pose a danger to me. To us.”

Raven closed her eyes and shook her head. “No. Not a danger to you. To Charles.” She opened her eyes and focused a suddenly angry gaze at Erik. “You _idiot_ ,” she spat. “When did you go in? When?”

“Last night,” he said. “It does no good to lock doors against me.”

“We weren’t locking you out, asshole,” she said. “We were locking something _in_.”

Erik frowned.

“What _time_ did you go in?” she asked.

“Sometime between twelve thirty and one o’clock.”

Raven dragged in a breath of air. “Maybe we still have time. I need your help. And you can’t say no. You let it out.”

“It? What is it?” Erik asked, confused. “Raven, you aren’t making any sense.”  
Raven glanced at the door, suddenly nervous. She reached out and grabbed Erik by making a fist in the material of his shirt at the shoulder. “Outside. Rose garden. We can’t talk here.”

Erik pulled himself out of her grasp. “Lead on.”

She briskly walked outside and to the rose garden, where not a single rose was in evidence, without looking back once at Erik. She stopped behind a hedge and tilted her face up into the sunlight that was saturating the entire garden.

“Now,” Erik said, “tell me why Charles is missing, why he’s in danger, and why you keep talking about that room.”

“Okay,” Raven said and took a deep breath. “Don’t laugh, because I know how this will sound, but it isn’t funny. I am deadly serious.”

Erik raised an eyebrow at that. He was pretty sure no one thought he had much of a sense of humor.

“There’s a bogeyman in the house,” Raven said, her voice low and serious.

Erik laughed. “A what? That’s--”

Raven punched him in the chest—or she meant to, but Erik moved and the blow fell harmlessly to the side as he caught her by the upper arms. “Raven?”

“You _laughed_. It _took_ Charles and you fucking laughed.” She yanked herself out of his grasp, and looked like she was ready to try hitting him again. “And it’s all your fucking fault because you opened the damned door!” Her hands were clenched into fists and she was glaring at him so furiously that Erik snapped to attention.

Erik studied her for a long moment. She was entirely serious, and obviously extremely upset. “Start from the beginning,” he said.

“I don’t know the beginning,” she said, shaking her head. “It was before I arrived. It’s always been in the house. It went after Charles before I got here, but it didn’t get him. He told me about that, later, after it came for us again. He’d forgotten about the first time because he’d been so little. It came for both of us. I guess two lonely, scared little kids wondering how they’re going to make it through another day was too much temptation for the bogeyman. I mean, that’s what they do. Steal children away.”

“I’ve heard stories of the monster, when I was a child, also,” Erik said. It was so long ago, now, those moments when he’d been warned. Don’t go out in the dark, or you’ll be kidnapped and stuffed into the sack. “It’s a common scary story to warn children away from doing dangerous things.”

“In this house, it’s real,” Raven stated, and she lifted her head to blaze a look at Erik that would have burned him to a crisp if she’d had a different sort of mutant power. “It was like being swallowed up by the night. Everything was black and I was completely abandoned and alone. But we got out, we escaped. Then we locked it in the room. So it couldn’t ever come out again.”

Erik frowned, thinking of the locks. One was easy to do from the hallway-side, but the other lock would have been impossible.

“I thought we would be safe now, because we grew up, but I think it’ll sometimes take grown-ups, too. Or at least, it always wanted Charles. He’s so…childlike. Maybe. I don’t know. Charles was more susceptible to it than I was. He’d listen to its lies and try to go with it. I think he only escaped because of me, because I _never_ wanted to go with that monster. I never wanted Charles to be tempted again, to be in danger of hearing it again. So we promised that we’d never open that room, because opening the door might let it _out_. That door had been locked for decades. And then you come along and just go in there. You broke in, you let it _out_ , and now it’s taken Charles.” Raven’s voice had reached a pitched intensity that was flaying Erik on the spot.

Raven broke into tears. “It’s going to eat him, Erik. That’s what these monsters do. They steal children for their supper.”

“We’re going to get him back.” Erik took Raven’s hands in his own. Her fingers stiff and frigid, unyielding in his attempt to comfort her. “I didn’t know,” he said, but the explanation felt hollow and useless. “I didn’t understand.” He stood there, trying futilely to warm her hands. “How did you lock it in the room the first time? Can we do that again?”

Raven shook her head. “There was someone else. A grown-up that found us, and he helped us escape. He locked the room…somehow. I’m not sure how. I don’t remember everything. It was just so long ago, and I was really little. But we tricked it into the room--” Raven stopped and her face had a faraway look. “I just now remembered,” she said, wonderingly. “I couldn’t sleep afterwards,” she said. “Neither of us could. I was so afraid, and Charles was afraid for me, and he was desolate. Inconsolable. Everything made us jittery and jumpy. We wouldn’t play in the house. We’d stay outdoors, even in the worst weather, dreading the moment we had to go back in.” She closed her eyes. “It took years before I could sleep through the night. The least little noise and I was sure it had returned.”

Erik had no response to that, except to press his lips together firmly. He stared down at her.

The sun moved behind a cloud and the day suddenly seemed infinitely less bright and comforting. A cool wind ghosted over his skin. Raven pulled her hand free and wrapped her arms around her torso.

“I only saw an empty room,” Erik said, finally, to break the silence. “If this shadowman has Charles, where is he keeping him?”

Raven made a noise, half-laugh and half-sob. “You don’t understand anything,” she said. “It’s the _bogeyman_. It doesn’t exist here in the real world. It comes from elsewhere.”

“So how do we get there?” Erik asked.

“We don’t!” Raven flung her arms in the air. “We have to wait until it comes to us! And now that it has Charles, it’ll never come back--” Raven stopped abruptly, her eyes shining. “Oh,” she said. “I think I just came up with a plan.”

~~~

“Good night, Hank,” Erik said. He was sitting in the study, rifling through one of the many books.

“Did you happen to see Charles today?” Hank asked as he stood at the door, not quite stepping into the room. “I never did catch up with him.”

“No,” Erik said and cast a hard look at Hank. “I’m sure we’ll see him tomorrow. Now. Good night.”

“Erm. Yes. Good night.” Hank didn’t move, just kept staring into the room.

Erik glanced back up from his book. “Alex and Sean already went to bed,” he said mildly.

“Right,” Hank said, and fled.

Erik sighed and went back to reading the book. He’d already spent the better part of the afternoon here, reading superstitious fairy stories. The lesser part of the afternoon he’d spent working on far more interesting activities that had engaged very specific aspects of his mutant power. He hoped that it was enough readiness. If what Raven had told him was true, then attempting to rescue Charles would be very hazardous. The whole thing felt a bit surreal, but Erik couldn’t deny that Charles was missing, and that Raven had a very real fear about how it had happened.

“Uncle Erik?”

Erik whipped his head around and resolutely closed his mouth and swallowed. Then he answered, sternly. “Raven. Why are you out of bed? Do you need a glass of water?”

“No, thank you.” The answer was prim, utterly adorable, and Raven held up a book. “I wanted a bed time story.”

“Of course. If you must. Come here,” Erik said, following the pre-ordained script. It had to look real, he thought. It had to be as real as they could manage it. He felt more than a little silly, pretending to be Raven’s bad-natured uncle. The bogeyman idea felt too unreal and ungraspable. He didn’t really believe in it.

Raven, all three feet tall of her, walked forward. She was a scaled down, miniaturized version of her older blonde self, and she made a beautiful child. Her face was downright cherubic, and her voice was sweet. Erik locked eyes with her for a moment as he picked her up, as he would have done with any small child, and settled her on his lap in the chair. She actually snuggled in against him, laying her head on his chest. Erik hoped that didn’t count against them. The stories seemed to indicate that certain bogeymen took _unwanted_ children. He didn’t have any real feelings for her, other than as a team member, and wondered if the bogeyman knew that, or if it was being fooled by their acting.

“Story?” she asked again, reminding him that he needed to play along, and Erik took the book.

“Fine, then. But not much, and then you have to go to bed. Or else.” Erik read, “Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares.” He didn’t have to wait long, and was only a few pages in when Raven’s head began to droop. After another few moments, she was asleep.

He closed the book and put if off to the side. Then he yawned, and settled back against the chair, his eyes closed.

He really wasn’t very sleepy, but Raven’s small form was warm against him, and in the act of feigning sleep, he must have dozed off just for a moment because the small screech of terror brought him to his feet in an instant.

“Erik!” Raven yelled, still in her child’s form. “It’s here!”

Erik looked everywhere around the room, stepping in a circle to survey behind him, ready to fight. He saw nothing, and returned his attention to the center of the room, and realized that Raven was missing.

“Raven!” he shouted, and bolted for the door to the empty room. His feet pounded on the floor and he saw that the door was _open_ as he approached, but it was closing fast.

“ _Too slow, old one, too slow, and I have my pretty one, now_ ,” said an oily, thin voice, as insubstantial as cigar smoke. Erik felt like recoiling. The bogeyman was _real_ , against all commonsense, it was here and it was trying to kidnap Raven. Erik pushed the revulsion down into the pit of his stomach. There was no time or energy to deal with it, and that reserve of strength that he’d always relied upon to get him through came as called.

“No!” Erik raised his hands and the door flung itself open, the doorknob and lock and hinges obeying his command. He ran in through the door and it was like running into a forest at night. He saw Raven just ahead of him, the paleness of her arms, a flash of her frightened face, and Erik reached out and grabbed at her. He pulled and there was incredible resistance, but with a savage yank, he managed to haul her to him.

“ _No, no, my little one, my pretty one, who will I dance with for all the years of my life without you!_ ” the voice lamented, cajoling, “ _Come back to me, little one. I have your kin. Your wee little brother. You wanted to come, you longed to join your brother, else I should never have been able to collect you. Come and dance with he and I, under the rolling dark sky._ ”

“Erik, please,” Raven whispered urgently, her small fists clinging tightly. “Please! Hurry!”

Erik summoned all the iron he’d stockpiled that afternoon. He’d stored some of it in his pockets, so to be ready at a moment’s notice, and the rest he’d placed on the floor in the hallway. The iron came at his call, flooding in through the still open door and Erik gritted his teeth as he forced the iron to take shape around the shadowy being in the room. It was as if the thing had no substance, no true physical being, because Erik could find no arms, no legs, no head or trunk around which to wrap the metal.

“Erik!” Raven was begging him now. “Please!”

He had one more attempt to make.

Erik pulled his iron knife, forged earlier from pure concentration, and stabbed into the air before him, and hoped he hit flesh. Instead, the shadows just swallowed Erik whole.

The bogeyman laughed, a nauseating sound that rolled over him. “ _Brazen one, iron is not for the likes of me. What shall I do with one such as you? You are too old to dance with, mayhap. But still fun to play with?_ ”

“Not so much fun, no,” Erik gritted out, and he flung his hands wide, looking for something, anything, on the monster that was metallic. There was a wisp of something and he grabbed it and throttled, and the monster yowled like the dying. Somewhere, distantly, Erik could hear Raven screaming, but he could do nothing about it. He was drowning in shadows.

~~~


	3. Chapter 3

~~~

“Mister? Are you okay?”

Erik moved and his head pounded with the aftereffects of a very nasty injury. He opened his eyes. “Charles?” He sat up, stunned and horrified. It was Charles but not _his_ Charles.

The boy—for Charles looked to be about eleven or twelve—stepped back. “Are you hurt? Who are you?” he asked, questions spilling out. “Were you taken? Invited? I’ve never seen anyone that wasn’t a child.”

“No, not hurt,” Erik said, and tested that answer out by moving. He felt tired and worn thin, but nothing was broken, and the minor aches and pains were well within his ability to ignore for the time being. “I came to look for my friend. To help him. My name is Erik.” He looked around, but wherever they were was dark at the edges and it was like being in a thick nighttime fog. Just at the very edges of his vision, it looked like trees, skeletal seeming, with all their leaves gone, reaching up into the sky. It was as if they were in the clearing of a great, enveloping forest.

Charles looked uncertain and wary. “You knew my name.”

“I—I know you. I know you when you’re a little older, but I know you.” Erik thought that he probably sounded like he was talking nonsense. “That’s who I came to find.”

Charles stared at him thoughtfully, and Erik stared back, fascinated by how Charles’ face would change as he grew older. His chin would grow a little softer, his cheeks a little more rounded, his nose a little less like a button. His eyes were still piercing, too large for his face. “I’ve seen him. Me,” he corrected. “The older me.”

“Seen him?” Erik asked.

“The bogeyman took him and brought him here. Like he did with me.” Charles stared solemnly at Erik. “It means I’ll leave here, doesn’t it? If I grow older, then I must get out of here.”

Erik nodded, amazed at how smart Charles-the-boy was. Even beyond his telepathy, his parents must have been unsure how to handle a child quite so perceptive. “You do. Get out. You get to grow up.”

Charles bit his lips and looked grief stricken. “But it came back to get me, and now we’re both here.”

“I swear to you,” Erik said, reaching out and offering his hand. “I will get you out of here.”

Charles looked at him oddly. “Are you my friend?” he asked. “When I’m grown-up? My friend?” It was an oddly pressing question, and Erik could feel the weight of it. He’d known that Raven was Charles’ friend, but perhaps his only one. Growing up in this house, huge as it was, and set so far away from anyone else, there would have only been Raven and Charles together. Add in the element of wealth and perhaps Charles had been tutored instead of sent to school.

Not that any of them had idyllic childhoods. Alex had been unintentionally destructive and ended up in jail. Sean, as good natured as he was, had a jut to his chin and curled fists at the ready, and a string of rejections in his past. Even Hank, perhaps the most normalized of them all, had feared and hid his mutation. Being a mutant made for a harsher childhood experience, even under the best of circumstances.

Erik still had his hand out and he stretched it out a bit farther. “I am your friend,” he said, and Charles smiled and took his hand. “Good,” Erik said. “Now, tell me what you know. Everything, as it might be important. And I am going to get us out of here.”

Charles nodded and thought a bit. “We have to go out through the door,” he said. “But I don’t know where the door is. I’ve been wandering around for a long time. My sister is here, too, but I can’t find her. I really need to find her. She didn’t want to come, and she’s really scared.” He glanced around. “I can’t _hear_ him. The bogeyman. I can’t--” He stopped short, breathing quickly, and covered his mouth with his hand. He looked at Erik with a panicked expression. “I didn’t mean--”

If Erik had time to be sad, he would have spared a moment, but as it was, every moment counted in trying to escape. “I know,” he said, and he pointed to his own temple. “I know what you can do.”

Charles sucked in air, his eyes going wide, and perhaps he was even more afraid of discovery than he was of the bogeyman. For that Erik felt a sweep of anger. Mutants shouldn’t have to be afraid of discovery. He reached out and took Charles’ hand again. “It’s okay, it’s fine. I can do it too.”

“You can?” Charles’ gaze went a bit muzzy, and there wasn’t even the sensation that Erik normally had of Charles mucking about in his head, and he wondered if Charles did that just to let him know he was there. He set the discovery aside to gnaw on later. Suddenly Charles smiled. “Metal,” he said. “You can _move_ metal.” He pressed in close to Erik, then, conspiratorially. “My sister! You have to help me find her. She’s in here, I think. She can look like different people, sometimes, but usually she’s blue. Like us, different.”

“I know,” Erik said. “I’ve met your sister. That’s why I’m here. She and I are going to get you—the older you—out of here. And I’m going to get you out as well. We’re _all_ getting out.” Erik stretched out his senses. He could feel the lock on the door, and the hinges. He couldn’t see more than a few feet into the foggy darkness, but he had an internal compass to get them out. “This way, I think.”

“Not without Raven!” Charles insisted. “We have to find her first! He took her after me. He went back for her, and we got separated.”

Erik closed his eyes, but the young Raven didn’t have any metal on her. The adult Raven did, they’d made sure of it when they’d planned, and right now Erik did not sense that metal. He hoped that meant that Raven had managed to escape out through the door while the bogeyman had been busy attacking him. Erik could also feel the iron he had brought into the room with him. It was just inside the door, laying like ribbons on the floor. “I can’t find her,” he said. “She doesn’t have any metal on her.”

“You can sense the metal, and find someone? If they’re wearing it?” Charles asked.

“Yes, and since you mentioned it--” Erik looked down and saw he’d been on top of the iron knife. He picked it up and presented it to Charles. “Apparently iron doesn’t work on our enemy, and the fairytales are useless, but as long as you carry this with you, I will sense it.”

Charles took the offered knife with a solemn nod of his head and clasped it firmly in his left hand. He was dressed only in light blue and white pajamas, and not even wearing socks, and there wasn’t a bit of metal on him anywhere else. “Thank you,” Charles said.

“This way,” Erik said, and stood up. He took Charles free right hand. “Let me get you safe, and I will go back and search for Raven. I promise.”

Charles looked up at him and Erik’s heart wrenched because he seemed so _small_ and young, so vulnerable. “No,” Charles said, and his determination was as large as anyone’s, and larger than such a small frame should have been able to manage. “I’m not going without Raven.”

“Charles--” Erik did not want to argue. He needed to reduce the amount of targets that the bogeyman had. If he could get Charles out, then he could focus on Raven.

“I can find _her_ , I know I can,” Charles said. “It’s just him I can’t hear. Then the door.”

Erik considered that and then nodded. “Alright. We’ll try it your way.” He crouched down next to Charles, feeling odd that for once, he was the one to try and help Charles with his gift, rather than the other way around. Erik knew Charles more than had the capability to find Raven, it had to be his overwrought emotional state clouding his ability to find her. “Take deep slow breaths, and when you feel really calm, I want you to think of her.” Charles started to take gulping breaths and Erik brought up their clasped hands between them and gave a slow, gentle squeeze. “Slowly. Don’t rush.”

Charles’ breath evened out and then after a moment he smiled and pointed with the knife in his left hand. “I found her! This way. She’s really sad. I can hear her crying. We have to hurry.”

“Lead on,” Erik said and followed as Charles tugged him along, their hands fastened tightly together.

It felt as if they stumbled through the darkness for hours, but Erik knew that time was entirely relative. They could have been in there for a scant few minutes and the misery pressing in against them from all sides would have made it feel like an eternity. Wherever Charles was leading them, though, they were moving away from the door, and from the possibility of escape.

Erik strained his eyes and ears, and then faintly he could hear the sounds of sobbing. It was so light he almost wasn’t sure it was real, but as Charles kept walking forward, the sound grew stronger.

Then Charles let go of Erik’s hand and fell down on his knees in front of a little blue girl, who was dressed in a long, worn nightdress, her feet as bare as Charles’. The bogeyman must have stolen them both from their beds, Erik thought. Did their parents even realize they were missing yet?

“Raven!”

“Charles!” Raven gasped and her head snapped up and she saw Erik and instantly changed into the little Shirley Temple version of herself. She clutched Charles’ arm and breathed in little sobs and shudders, and Erik wanted to gather both of them up and hug them. He didn’t especially much _like_ children, but their pain was so evident, and overwhelming, that his own heart ached for them. They must be terrified out of their minds.

He crouched down. “It’s okay, Raven,” he said. “I like you better when you’re blue.”

Raven stared at him.

“He’s a friend,” Charles said. “He’s like us.”

“Like us?” Raven asked, her voice small, squeaking.

Erik gestured and his watch came unclasped and floated in the air. “Just like you,” he said. He settled the watch back on his wrist. He wasn’t sure it was worth the trouble, since it wasn’t currently working as a watch. The hands were frozen at the moment he’d entered through the doorway into the room.

Raven gave him a tentative smile. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” Erik replied. “I’m Erik.”

“He’s from when we grow-up,” Charles explained. “He’s friends with us.”

“Oh, I see,” Raven said, and that was enough. Erik wondered if he’d ever been such an accepting child. He supposed that a future friend finding them in the lair of a supernatural creature was just as likely as having blue skin and mental powers.

“We’re getting out of here,” Erik said. “Can you walk? I could carry you.” He would prefer to have his hands free, either to use for hand-to-hand combat, or to facilitate the use of his mutant ability, but the first order of business was to escape before the bogeyman came back from wherever it was he had gone. Their luck couldn’t last forever.

“Piggy-back?” Raven asked hesitantly. She slowly changed back into the tiny blue child, a worried look on her face, as if waiting for Erik to decline to touch her.

“You’ll have to hold on,” Erik told her. “I might need a free hand to fight with.”

Raven nodded and came around to leap up on his back. Erik nestled her neatly against him and Raven peered over his shoulder, her arms clinging low around his collarbone and not at all choking him. “You’ve done this before,” Erik said.

“Only with Charles,” Raven said into his ear.

“Hold my hand, and don’t let go,” Erik said and reached out to clasp Charles’ hand again. Erik sensed the direction of the door lock, and began walking.

After a long time of silence, Charles spoke. “Will you come back in for him? For me?”

“Yes,” Erik said, without hesitation. He considered it for a moment. Charles had found Raven. “Can you tell where he is? Your older self?”

Charles looked down. “No. I saw him and sort of…well, I could tell it was sort of me, but not me. Not me yet. But I couldn’t hear him at all. It was like when you throw a rubber ball at a wall and it bounces back. Maybe if he let me in. Maybe if he knew it was me. But he’s so much better at it than I am. It’s like a fortress.” Charles’ gaze became unfocused and he grew silent for a long moment. “Someday I’m going to be able to be that,” he said.

“Yes,” Erik said. “You should train as much as you can. The better you’re able to control your gift, the better off you’ll be.”

“I know.”

“We practice all the time!” Raven said into his ear. “Me especially! I’m really good. I could even look like you.” She stopped. “But only if you wanted me to.”

“You’re always welcome to look like anyone you want to look like,” Erik said, and wondered if he was saying that right. Children were such a minefield. It was impossible to tell what they’d take to heart or what they’d forget in an instant. “But I particularly think you’re lovely just as you are,” he added. “You’ve very lucky to be blue. Not everyone gets that opportunity.”

Raven made an unconvinced noise.

Charles jumped in. “That’s what I told her,” he said. “I wish I were blue. She could read minds instead of me.” There was a disheartening glumness there that Erik wished he could erase. His Charles was so much more resilient than this. Was this part of that process that made him so? In Erik’s head, Raven and Charles were competent, exquisite, unique mutants, and to see them so small and young gave him indigestion. They were all potential and untrained, and so very, terribly vulnerable. Just about anything in the world could come along and ruin them, hurt them.

“I am going to tell you both something very important,” Erik said as they continued to trudge through the darkness.

Raven tightened her hold around his shoulders and Charles pressed his hand more firmly. They both waited, listening intently.

“Both of you are perfect just the way you are. Never forget that.” Erik took a deep breath. “And try not to trust the humans so much, please,” he added. If he had the time, he’d pick them both up and shake sense into them, so that as adults he wouldn’t have to argue and fight with them so much. Particularly Charles. At this age, perhaps, Erik could force some _reason_ into him.

Raven nestled her head next to his and whispered, “I don’t trust them. It’s just Charles. Because his father died and he only has his mother, and she doesn’t love him at all.”

Charles shoulders stiffened and Erik knew he’d heard. Erik squeezed his hand momentarily. “Well, I love you both,” Erik said, and wondered when he’d become so quick to make rash declarations, even if the sentiment was true. “Always remember that. I love both of you.”

“Oh,” Raven said, snuggling in against him. “No one’s ever loved me except for Charles! I love you too, Erik!”

Erik looked down to see Charles gazing up at him, his eyes wide and thoughtful. “Me, too,” Charles said. “How long until I get to meet you? When I’m older?” he asked. “How long do I wait?”

“It’s a few years,” Erik said sadly. “I was born in another place, and it took you a long time before you found me. I would have tried to find you sooner, if I’d known.”

“That’s okay,” Charles said, and his smile was beatific. “As long as it happens someday. I can wait.”

Erik pulled his attention away from the children. They were very close to the door. “We’re almost there,” he said. “Now, I don’t want any arguments. You’re both to go through, and don’t look back. I have to stay, to find the older you, Charles.”

“No!” Raven said, and clutched Erik a little bit too tightly around the throat. “Don’t leave us!”

He gently dislodged her hands. “I have to, Raven. I’m so sorry.”

Charles looked up at her. “The other me is still in there,” he said, “remember?”

Raven nodded, her eyes tightly closed. “You have to save Charles,” she said.

“You’re a dear, brave girl, Raven,” Erik said. “I just need you to be brave a little longer, okay? Can you do that?”

“Yes,” Raven breathed. “Yes. I can be brave.”

“When you’re safe,” Erik added, “no matter what, don’t ever come in this room again. Do you understand?”

“But he came out,” Charles said, and he pressed close to Erik. “He came out to get us.”

“Bolt the door,” Erik told him. “I’ll lock it on this side, and you lock it on yours.” He wasn’t entirely sure it would work, but perhaps it would slow the shadowman down, at least. Raven had only mentioned that she and Charles had been captured once. If Erik rescued them this one time, maybe that would be the end of it.

“The door!” Raven said and bounced on Erik’s back, pointing. “The door!”

Erik squinted and he could see it with his eyes as well as his mind. The door came into focus through the dismal mists. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, out you both go. Remember, don’t come in here, don’t go with him. Hide if you hear him or see him.”

Charles nodded and Erik slipped Raven off his back. She clutched at Charles’ hand.

Erik grabbed the doorknob. “Ready? Quick as you can once I open the door.” He twisted and pulled, and the door opened, and Erik thought that the few seconds it took for Charles to rush forward, dragging Raven along with him, were abysmally long.

Then there was a howl of fury, and the darkness grew, and Erik knew that the bogeyman was there again. “No!” it screamed. “My pretties! My little ones!” The bogeyman clawed at the doorframe. “You let them go. You!” Erik could only get glimpses of form and flesh through the whirl of dark, and then he felt shoved and pelted.

“Run!” Erik yelled at Charles and Raven, both of whom had stopped on the other side, and he’d seen Charles take a step back, as if he meant to assist Erik. “Charles, run!”  
But Charles didn’t run. He took another hesitant step back toward the door.

“Let him go,” Charles said. “I’ll come with you, if you let him go--”

Fuck, Erik thought, and the bogeyman’s delight seared through him. “Oh, yes, my little dearheart,” the bogeyman purred. “Come to me. Dance with me. Never grow old. I will never let the worms have you, and your soul will shine forever.”

Charles, pale, as if all his blood had drained away, took another step forward. “You have to let him go,” he said.

“No, no, no!” Raven started screaming behind Charles and was pulling on his arm, yanking at him. She leaned away, her small feet sliding on the smooth floor, not heavy enough or strong enough to pull Charles to safety on her own.

The bogeyman’s claws thrashed against his skin and Erik felt a warm wetness over his scalp and it dripped down to his eye, and Charles’ attention flicked to it. “Let him go!” Charles demanded.

Erik twisted against the darkness and suddenly found purchase. The door was open and there was metal in the hallway. A sconce on the wall and a chandelier in the room over, and pipes hidden away inside the walls, and Erik pulled on those, and the bogeyman screeched as Erik ripped free of him, into the hallway, and landed on the floor. Erik raised a hand and the door slammed shut even as tendrils of smoky darkness slithered out. He rotated his wrist and the lock caught.

“Erik!” Raven ran into his arms and started sobbing again. Erik reached out to soothe her, and meaningless words tumbled out of him. “Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay, nothing happened. You’re safe now. Safe. Raven, it’s okay.” Erik looked up at Charles, who was frozen in place, leaning forward, his face so ashen that Erik knew the boy had to be in shock. “Come here, Charles,” he said, and Charles flung himself into his arms too. Erik sat there, on the floor, and held them both. Charles didn’t cry, but he breathed heavily and shuddered. “You’re both okay now,” Erik said, and then he kept saying it, over and over again.

Exhausted, Erik didn’t quite hear the creak of the floorboards.

 _Mother!_ Charles projected a split second before Erik realized there was a blonde woman looming over them, horror on her face. There was a sliding sensation against his arm and Erik knew that Raven had changed form into something entirely un-blue.

“Monster!” she yelled. “Filthy kidnapper. You’re not taking my child! Charles, little girl, come over here!”

“No, he’s our friend!” Raven said.

Erik stared up at her. She had a stern face, with nothing of the kindness etched about it that he associated with Charles, yet something of a related look to her. Her voice was scratchy, with a smoky resonance, and harsh at the edges. Erik disliked her on sight.

 _She’s got a gun!_ Charles’ panic bled over to Erik and Erik reacted. The gun went flying away and Erik rose to his feet, prepared to rend, and fight, and protect and—

“Sleep,” Charles commanded, and his mother’s eyes rolled up into her head and she slumped, and Erik caught her. He put her down gently, for Charles’ sake.

“Anyone else in the house?” Erik asked.

Charles shook his head.

“Good.” Erik ran a hand through his hair, and felt the tenderness there from the wounds the shadowman had inflicted. He gently prodded the area and noted the bleeding had stopped, although he must have looked bloodied and insane. He was glad that Charles’ mother hadn’t fired on sight, before he’d even known she was there. Erik grimaced. What if she had fired? Charles and Raven had been wrapped around him, they might have been hit.

This couldn’t be any more complicated. He needed to get back into that room and rescue _his_ Charles, but he couldn’t yet abandon the kids. They were both still shaking and pale, and tending to crowd in near him, clearly seeking a semblance of the feeling of security. Another few minutes wouldn’t matter either way. Not to mention the fact that Erik had just stepped through a portal in time. “What year is it?” he asked.

“1945,” Charles told him. “We just had New Year’s.” Erik closed his eyes. Not far enough back in time to save his parents, then. So close, so close, and yet so far. He shut out the aching, bleeding feeling that threatened to overwhelm him. He’d think on his regrets later.

“How long will she sleep?” he asked.

“Until morning,” Charles said and looked unhappy. “I didn’t mean to do it, but I didn’t want her to hurt you.”

“You did the right thing,” Erik told him. “Sometimes you have to do things you don’t like.” Erik looked at her, in a dressing gown, her hair mussed, her mouth pulling down even in slackness into a disapproving look. “I’m going to carry her into the study downstairs,” he decided. “Then we’ll go to the kitchen and make some hot chocolate. After that…I’ll see how things stand.”

Erik held out his hand and the gun that he’d swept to the side came flying into it. He turned it over, noting that it was a revolver and that it held .45 copper-jacketed bullets, which was a hell of a lot of firepower, and then emptied it into his hand. He put the bullets in his pocket, and the empty gun into his waistband. He didn’t need the gun to make the bullets into projectiles, and under no circumstances was he going to leave the gun in the house. Just the thought of Charles’ mother and her unsteady fingers near the trigger made him furious. She’d aimed it at her own son, in an attempt to subdue a kidnapper. No, Erik did not trust that Mrs. Xavier should have a firearm in anyway whatsoever. Erik counted his blessings that Charles or Raven hadn’t already been accidentally fired upon.

Erik concentrated and swept his attention all through the mansion. There were hunting rifles and a shotgun in a cabinet in one of the rooms, and the cabinet was securely locked, but no other firearms in the rest of the house. Erik concentrated and a moment later the internal workings were all ruined, down to the last firing pin.

Charles and Raven trailed after him as he carried Charles’ mother to the study. He put her down gently on the sofa and then turned around. Charles reached out a hand to touch his mother’s fingers, and looked down on her, worried. Then he pulled back and waited for Erik.

“Kitchen,” Erik said, and followed after Charles and Raven as they scurried in front of him.

The kitchen was very much as Erik knew it, even most of the items were the same, although a few were missing, perhaps not yet purchased. He found a pot and filled it with milk. He set it on the stove and then went hunting for the powdered chocolate and the powdered sugar. Charles and Raven sat at the table like little angels. Charles even had his hands folded on the top, as if waiting for a lesson. Raven, at least, fidgeted.

When the milk was hot, Erik added a pinch of salt, the chocolate and the sugar, and stirred until everything looked well mixed. He poured the hot chocolate into three separate mugs and set them down on the table.

He sipped and decided it wasn’t too awful, though certainly he was never going win awards. “It’s hot,” he cautioned.

Charles and Raven picked up their mugs with eyes as huge as saucers, and Erik frowned at them, considering.

Raven giggled. “I tried to make Charles think I was his mother when we first met,” she said. “Except that I offered to make him hot chocolate even though I didn’t know how.”

“My mother _never_ makes hot chocolate,” Charles interjected, with a stern look at Raven. “This is good,” he offered.

“Thank you,” Erik said. They sipped at their drinks for a moment in silence. “I have a suggestion,” Erik said mildly. “Your mother, Charles, is under the impression I was trying to kidnap you, and she definitely saw Raven there.”

Charles nodded and Raven’s gaze went from Charles to Erik and back again.

“It would not be much of a stretch to continue to let her believe I had also kidnapped Raven. She would be a lost child. And if you told your mother that Raven somehow saved your life….” Erik shrugged. “It might be the easier way to get Raven adopted into the family.”

Charles grew still.

“Your mother will want to discuss this with you when she wakes up, and you’ll have to tell her something,” Erik said. “It might work.”

Charles reached out and grasped Raven’s hand. He looked at her. “Do you want to try it?” he asked. “No more hiding? No more pretending?”

Raven nodded vigorously. “I could be your real sister, then!”

Charles smiled and Raven smiled back, and Erik’s heart mended just a fraction.

“What about the monster?” Raven asked. “Will he stay in the room? Or come out again?”

“I don’t know,” Erik said. “The older version of you, Raven, told me that it only took you once.” He didn’t volunteer the part where they’d been so afraid of his return that they’d both trembled in horror for months afterward. The Raven and Charles he knew were resilient and tough, and he supposed that this experience must have part of the forge that tempered them. “But no matter what, I have to go back in. I will lock the door from the inside.”

“Do you have to?” Raven asked. She put her mug down and ran around the table to throw her arms around Erik. “You saved us. We’d still be in there without you! You can’t go back. What if you can’t get out again?”

Erik hugged Raven back, feeling awkward as he tried to comfort her, and then pulled away a little. “I have to. My friend is in there.” He glanced at Charles. “Charles when he grows up. I need to save him.”

Raven started crying again and Erik hugged her again, and stroked her hair, trying to be soothing. It didn’t come very naturally to him, but he did his best.

“Here,” Charles said, and held out his hand with the iron knife that Erik had forged. “You’ll need this.”

“You keep it,” Erik said. “Just in case.” He grinned. “You can show it to me when we meet again. Remind us both of this whole thing.” Erik took the last swig of his hot chocolate and then washed it in the sink. He checked on Raven and Charles and they both had finished, so he washed those mugs also.

“Time to go,” Erik said. The kids had needed the time and space to clear their heads of what they’d just experienced, but he was feeling anxious to get back to his purpose. Absently he glanced at his watch and belatedly remembering it had stopped. He blinked. The watch was working again. He looked at the clock hung on the kitchen wall. The time was completely wrong. His watch said eleven thirty, and the clock read three thirty in the morning. “The longer I wait, the harder it’ll be to do this.”

Charles and Raven followed him up to the door, leaning against each other, with obvious fear in their eyes.

“Don’t worry,” Erik told them. “I’ll be okay.”

“But we won’t know,” Charles said. “For years to come.”

“No, you won’t. But sometimes we have burdens to bear that we don’t like.” Erik crouched down again. He looked Raven in the eye. “Don’t forget what I said. You’re beautiful. Blue is beautiful. I like you just the way you are.” He half-turned to look at Charles. “You can do anything you set your mind to, Charles. I mean that.” Erik stood up. “Lock the door behind me.” Erik reached out and used his power to unlock the door and then opened it and groaned.

The room was just an empty room again. Except it wasn’t really empty. There were a few odd boxes, a chair, an end table, and various pieces of debris scattered around.

Charles crept up to the threshold. “It’s gone?”

“It’s gone,” Erik said and he felt like he could hit himself in the head. Of course it was gone. He’d opened it before and it had been an empty room. He needed the bogeyman himself to open the way into his dimension. “Damn,” he said.

Charles touched his arm. “We should move the things out. Otherwise my mother may want for them some time.”

“Good idea,” Erik said. He walked into the room, noting that both Charles and Raven hung back at the threshold, reluctant to enter. He didn’t blame them. It took him less than ten minutes to put all the items into the next room over.

“What now?” Charles asked.

“You’ll have to stay!” Raven said and clapped her hands.

“I think I need your help,” Erik said. “But it’s going to be very dangerous.”

“You need us to make the monster open the door,” Charles said, and Erik wondered if he’d guessed, or if he’d plucked the idea straight from his mind. With this younger version of Charles, he didn’t even feel the intrusion.

“I do. But I don’t want him to take you again. So you need to call him here, but then run away as fast as you can, and hide.”

Charles shook his head. “He’ll know you’re here. He’ll hurt you.”

“I have to get inside,” Erik said calmly.

“You could stay here, with us,” Charles said. “It’ll be years and years before I grow up. Maybe you can just keep it from happening in the first place. If you’re here with us, you’ll know to stop it.”

Erik stared down at the boy beside him. “I don’t think it works like that.”

“It’s me in there,” Charles said, his voice surprisingly stern. “And I can decide. You should stay. Let _him_ stay in there. You can stay here and be safe with us.”

Erik crouched down again. “Charles,” he said, “You don’t mean that.”

Charles bit his lip and stared at Erik.

“Call the monster, please.”

“I’m not sure how,” Charles said, with a stubborn lift to his chin, and Erik was sure now that Charles had plucked the knowledge out of his head and was being obstinate.

“You know how, Charles,” Erik said softly, but adamantly.

Charles looked miserable, but he turned to face the door and tears streaked down his cheeks. In a choking voice, he recited, “Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.” Charles closed his eyes, then he walked to the door and turned the knob, and pushed it open. Inside, all was darkness.

Erik pulled Charles back gently by one arm. “Don’t cross that threshold,” he warned. He glanced up and down the hallway and then again into the room. “No bogeyman,” he said.

“No,” said Charles. “I wished for him not to come.”

Erik cast a sharp glance at Charles. “You what?”

“I wished--”

Erik waved him to stop. “It doesn’t matter. You two take care of yourselves, and lock this door after me.”

“Be careful!” Raven called after him. “Good luck!”

Erik gave her a smile and a wave, and then pulled the door closed behind him. The darkness was almost instantaneous. Erik reached for the revolver that he’d tucked into the waistband of his pants. If stabbing the monster in the heart with an iron knife hadn’t done any damage, Erik didn’t think the gun would either. Perhaps if he had silver bullets, but then again, that was probably pure superstition, too, and useless.

He raised the gun in his hands and transformed it into a solder across the frame and onto the door. It was a much better use for the gun than if he’d left it in the unsteady hands of Charles’ mother. He could undo the seal when he found Charles and they needed to leave, but the bogeyman wouldn’t be bothering anyone in the Xavier Mansion again.

Erik sent out his awareness. Please have something metal with you, Charles, he thought. And, to his surprise, Charles did. Well, damn, he thought.

With the metal compass of his abilities, Erik slowly walked through the gloom. He was wary, on guard, waiting for the bogeyman to strike.

Again, it seemed as if hours passed. He walked and walked, and it was hard to know if he made much progress because all he saw was the darkness, and the faint scratching of the tree branches in the distant sky.

Finally, he could sense the nearness of the metal on, who he hoped, would be Charles. Erik slowed and approached carefully, and indeed, there was Charles, sitting on the ground, looking as casual as ever.

Charles turned his head at Erik’s approach. “Erik!” he said and smiled. “How are you here?” He was wearing nothing but a pair of pajamas again, solid green, and still no socks.

“I came for you,” Erik said. “It’s my fault the door was opened, and I came to help you escape.”

Charles frowned at him. “Escape? How did you find me?”

“Your knife,” Erik said.

“This?” Charles lifted the knife, and Erik smiled.

“I knew it instantly. I made that, I gave it to you.”

“I’ve had this for years,” Charles said. “Since just after Raven came here. I’ve slept with it under my pillow. Just in case. You couldn’t have….” Charles shook his head as if he were trying to clear the cobwebs.

“You don’t remember?”

Charles spoke slowly. “He told me to hold on to it. That we’d talk about it together someday.” He rubbed a hand over his brow. “That was you? So long ago….”

“Me,” Erik confirmed. Out of habit, he glanced at his watch. A quarter to midnight, and stopped again. “It was a short while ago from my perspective.”

“You’ve been wandering around here all night long, then?”

“Just about.”

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

Erik raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t call it that, unless you really fancy black and grey as color schemes.”

“Black and grey?” Charles raised two fingers to his temple and Erik felt the light skim of his mind. “That’s not at all what I see, Erik,” Charles said, his voice distressed. “Oh, I see, I think. You weren’t really invited, were you? You keep seeing it all the wrong way. Would you like to see it my way?”

“Yes.” Then Erik’s view broke open into glorious color. They were on the slope of a hill and before them was the setting sun, drenching the world in pink and purple. The grass beneath them was soft and lush, and below them not far away in the valley was a stream of darkest blue, its glass surface reflecting the sunset into a rainbow of hues. A well tended bonfire was burning near the river’s edge, and Erik could see _children_ dancing around it. “Charles! There are children down there!”

“I know.”

“You know?” Erik stepped forward several paces. “We need to get them out of here.”

“They’re stuck here, I’m afraid.”

Erik whirled. “What?”

“They’ve been here far longer than we have. Decades. Centuries, possibly. The bogeyman was born when people first started telling stories, you know. Be afraid of the dark. It was safer to hide and huddle and wait for day.”

“I’m not interested in a lecture, professor. I came in here to get you out, and now to help get these kids out.” Erik frowned. “What do you mean when you say stuck?”

“Raven knew, when we were kids. It’s in all the fairytales. You have a full day to get out again. Once the clock strikes midnight, you’re trapped. Forever.” Charles gave Erik a wide smile. “Of course, there is no time here at all, so you’re never really trapped, you know. You would always return to exactly when you left.”

Erik’s eyes went to his watch. “That’s why my watch stopped.”

“Of course.” Charles settled even more comfortably against the hill. “I haven’t gone down yet to the campfire,” he said. “I was building up my courage. I don’t know if they’ll remember me, it’s been so long.”

“Charles, you’re talking nonsense.” Erik stood over Charles and looked down. “Now, come on. I know how to get back to the door.”

“Whatever for?” Charles asked. “I waited nearly twenty years for this. I’m not going back now. Raven doesn’t need me anymore. The others don’t need me, not really.” Charles shook his head. “No, I’m staying. He came for me, and I was invited, and I’m not going back.”

Erik stared at Charles. The bogeyman must have done something to him, considering the different vision of the realm, the odd way he was talking. “You’re coming back with me if I have to drag you,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I’m not going, Erik. You go. I don’t think he’ll stop you, you know. You’re entirely too old for this sort of thing.”

“So are you.”

“I know,” Charles said sadly. “That’s why I’m sitting here on the hill, instead of down there. I don’t really dance anymore, do I?”

Erik kneeled down next to Charles. “This isn’t the place for you, Charles. Come home with me, please.” He reached out and touched Charles’ cheek. “Weren’t we just learning each other? I think I might need you.” Then, before he could think better of it, and more rash than he’d ever allowed himself to be before, he added, “I think I love you. Won’t you give me a chance?”

Charles blinked back tears. “He won’t let me go again,” he whispered. “He came just for me. He was waiting all that time, and so _angry_. You bolted the door against him. I think he’ll kill you, if you bring me back with you.”

“He can try.” Erik gripped onto Charles’ hand and pulled him up to standing. “We can’t save the children?” He was regretful about that, but also relieved in a small way. It was going to be difficult enough getting Charles out of here, dragging more children along would make it nearly impossible. Perhaps he could return for them, later.

“They’ve all made their fate.” Charles tapped a finger on Erik’s watch. “Looks like I have fifteen minutes left before I’m stuck here, too.”

“Never,” Erik vowed. He reached out his mind and secured an anchor point at the metal locks of the door. “This way.” Walking was much easier and more pleasant with Charles’ viewpoint. There was a path, smooth and well traveled, and the sun never did seem to actually set. The constant twilight provided cool light through which to see, and instead of the hours of walking, Erik found himself at the door in a short period of time.

He held up his hand and the soldered-on lock peeled away. Then he rotated his hand and the door unlocked itself. “Let’s go,” he said, hardly daring to believe that it would be this easy. Then he noticed the inky tendrils curling down from the seams in the door.

“Hurry!” he shouted, and he reached for the doorknob, but a smoky-arm was wrapped there and he couldn’t grip it. Erik gritted his teeth and _shoved_ at it with his power, willing the knob to turn, but it held fast. The metal wanted to respond to him, but the strength of the inky-darkness overwhelmed his attempt.

Then a smoke-tendril pushed into him and Erik went flying backward.

“Erik!” Charles called out, panic-filled.

Erik landed with a thud and his teeth clicked together, and he tasted blood in his mouth. His eyesight was dark and he blinked, trying to see again, and realized that he was being coated in the oily-smoke substance. It clung to him, creeping into his pores, dripping into his ears. He smelled it in his nose.

“No!” Charles shouted, and he ran to Erik’s side, kneeling down. “Don’t hurt him!” His arms came around Erik, his hands trying to pull away the thickening mists.

Erik struggled, trying to breath without taking the noxious spume into his lungs, and he ended up coughing. Rolling over to his hands and knees, he curved his back and tried to get the adulterant out of his chest. It scrabbled inside him, tearing him apart.

“Please, no! Stop it!” Charles was screaming, trying to hold onto him, pleading.

Erik’s throat was on fire, as if he’d swallowed acid. His eyes burned, gunked up and sticking, and he could barely blink. There was only darkness, and that drip, drip sensation like wax stopping up his ears kept on, and on. He tried to scream, but his throat was closing up, as well as his lungs. He reached out with his power, desperate, for that ephemeral metal he’d touched before when he’d fought the monster, but it wasn’t there. The monster had learned, had changed. There was nothing to grab, nothing to control.

Charles was sobbing. Erik could feel the movement against him as Charles had wrapped himself around Erik’s body, as if he could have been a shield for the assault of a bogeyman that was made of gaseous evil. Erik wheezed, barely able to breathe, and just kept concentrating on not dying yet.

“Please,” Charles pleaded, over and over again, “please, please.”

“ _Dearheart, dearheart._ ”

Through the smudge shuttering up his ears, Erik could hear the monster speaking. It was like the shrill whistle of a kettle under-filled, and Erik flinched, and covered his ears with his hands, curling into a ball. He sucked in as much air as he could.

“ _This one is a thief, little brave one, little waiting child. A thief, a thief, a wicked thief._ ”

“Please,” Charles begged, and Erik wished he could spit in the eye of the monster. Thief! Erik thought. For rescuing Charles? For rescue young-Charles and Raven?

“ _Don’t leave me, dearheart. It is so cold without you here. My arms cannot hold you when you are gone from me, little waiting one. Already you’ve grown so tall! If you leave, you shan’t come back at all._ ”

“I know, I know,” Charles said, voice cracking. “But don’t hurt him anymore. Please.”

The burn in Erik’s throat eased a fraction, but still he could not see. He gasped for air, unable to drag in enough.

“ _Dearheart, dearheart…._ ”

Fuck, Erik thought, was he imagining that the monster was crying now? He could hear the wailing in its voice, the drenching sorrow, of loss and misery.

“He loves me,” Charles whispered. “Please.”

“ _Thief! Wretched, vile **thief**! Stealer of hearts, and taker of souls, and tainted thief! If the thief be dead, dearheart, you shall stay!_ ”

Suddenly Erik felt as if there were bands around his chest and he was being squeezed to death. His ribs were being crushed and he couldn’t hold his breath against it. The door, Erik thought. If it is killing me, it can’t be guarding the door! He could at least get Charles away from it, if he could open the door. Erik flung out a hand, seizing upon the doorknob, and giving it a vicious twist. It popped open and the door swung wide—

“Stop! Monster! Shadowman! Cease!” A new voice boomed into the space and all of the snaking fetters around Erik instantly released, pulling back. He sucked in air, choking and blinking, trying to gauge what had just happened.

Charles’ arms were around him again. “Don’t move yet,” he murmured. “Catch your breath. Run when I tell you.”

“Not without you,” Erik wheezed, and he rubbed at his eyes. The crust fell away and he could finally see again.

The bogeyman had coalesced into a semi-solid form. What wasn’t hidden in the shadows was grey and hairy, with long, graceful hands that appeared dexterous and strong. Its face was still within the shades, but its eyes burned like coals through the darkness.

Standing against it was an even more horrible monster, with its back to the open door. It had to be at least nine feet tall, black as soot, with a mouthful of teeth that just went on and on. Its eyes were on top of its head and it blinked like a crocodile. Its hands ended in razor-sharp claws that clacked ominously against each other as the monster gestured.

“You have broken the law!” the new monster exclaimed, pointing a clawed finger. “That’s not a child, and you know it!”

“ _No matter does it make, Slayer-Fiend, the child within was mine twice, now thrice. An invitation did I make, an invitation did he accept, three times over. If ever I owned a pretty one’s soul, ‘tis this little one’s. Even now, he wants to stay._ ”

“You can’t keep him,” the crocodile-monster bellowed. “He has those who love him in the world. He’s not lost. Nor unwanted.”

“ _I shall keep him anyway, Crusher-Beast. He’s not yours to take, nor mine to give._ ”

“We’ll see about that!” the crocodile replied, its voice a shriek of decibels against the darkness.

“Run, now!” Charles whispered into Erik’s ear, and he pulled him to his feet and nearly physically carried him to the door.

“ _Do I know you, Slayer-Boss? Order-Giver? This is not your domain--_ ”

Charles pushed Erik out the door and Erik fell in a heap on the floor in the hallway. He had wrapped one hand around Charles’ wrist and he pulled now, with what minor strength he had left, because Charles had shoved him _out_ and then stayed _in_.

“For fuck’s sake, Charles! Get in the damned hallway!” the crocodile monster shouted, and it turned away from the shadowman and picked Charles up by the shoulders and shunted him to safety. He fell to Erik’s side, with not even an unraveled thread left behind across the doorway. The crocodile monster leapt into the hallway, too, shrinking as it did so and transforming from black to blue and suddenly Erik realized it had been _Raven_ all along.

She pulled the door shut as she moved, the angry seething of the shadowman left behind, in the room. “Erik!” she shouted, “Bolt the fucking door, Erik! Bolt it now!”

Erik shoved his hands into the air and clenched his fingers into fists and the lock on the door sizzled and froze in place, never to be undone again. The metal he’d peeled away before—for Erik could still feel the _inside_ of the damn-forsaken room—snapped into place, molten hot, smothering the seams. The fucking door was going to be hermetically sealed forever, and ever.

Erik dropped his arms and his head back. Charles was limp against him and Erik peered down at him. Charles blinked once, staring at the door, and then closed his eyes.

Raven was swearing, and Erik had to admit she was very creative at it.

Erik managed a small smile in her direction. “We did it,” he managed to say around the ruination of his throat. He lifted his arm just enough to see his watch. One minute after midnight.

“Fucking-A, Erik. You’re damn right we did,” Raven said. “Looks like we’ll be staying here.” She brushed the hair at Charles’ forehead and made a tisking noise, then she curled up around Charles on his other side, and closed her eyes.

Sleeping, Erik, decided, even if it was on the hard floor of the hallway, was probably a good strategy. He closed his eyes, too.

~~~


	4. Chapter 4

~~~

“Ahem!”

Erik opened one eye. Alex, Sean, and Hank swam into view.

“Are you training?” Sean asked, the laugh in his voice barely contained.

Raven yawned. “What time is it?” she asked.

“Nine twenty,” Hank informed her.

“Yuck,” Raven said. She looked around. “We slept on the floor. I need a shower.” She nudged Charles, who was amazingly still sleeping. “Wake up, sleepy-head.”

Charles blinked himself awake, gaze focusing first on Raven and then on Erik, and finally on the three towering goons above their heads. “Hello, there,” he said. “What--” He stopped. “Right, then. Hallway. That’s unexpected.”

“Where you training?” Hank asked, and this time it was in all earnestness. Obviously, that had to be the only explanation possible, because otherwise, there were _issues_.

“No, not quite,” Charles said. “More like an experiment.” He rubbed a hand through his hair. “All a bit fuzzy right now.” He slowly got to his feet.

“Shower,” Raven prompted.

“Yes, a shower. Then some breakfast.” Charles clapped a hand onto Hank’s shoulder. “Expect the unexpected, right, Hank? I’ll catch up with you later.” He gave a nod and a smile to Sean and Alex, and walked away.

“Later,” Raven said, and headed off in the direction of her own bedroom.

Erik brought himself around to lean up against the wall. The door was still in plain view.

“What happened, really?” Alex asked.

Erik flicked his attention to Alex and he could see that amusement was warring with concern. “Shouldn’t the three of you be training?” he asked. “Or in the lab, or something?”

“Fine,” Hank said with a tone of voice practiced at being given the brush-off. He gave Alex and Sean a shove and sauntered off. Alex shoved his hands in his pockets, glared at Erik, and followed suit.

“But why were you sleeping on the floor?” Sean asked. “All three of you? Together? And--” Suddenly Sean turned bright pink and he backpedaled. “I just remembered, gotta go.”

Erik put his face in his hands and smirked. He supposed it was better to be thought either a jerk or…whatever the hell odd kinky thing Sean had imagined. Erik slowly reached out his power and felt around the door. Solid as he could have made it and the lock was useless unless fixed by someone with the ability to control metal. The shadowman wouldn’t be coming through that entryway again.

Erik rubbed at his eyes. It was bizarre, though, that the creature only had the one entrance. In a house this large, wouldn’t the bogeyman be able to creep about in every scrap of shadow that existed? The fireplaces _alone_ were a security threat of immense proportions.

And the sack had been missing. Erik distinctly remembered that bogeyman supposedly stuffed children into a sack.

An ill feeling swept through him as he stared at the door. The entire room had been the sack. He stuffed children into the room and kept them there.

Erik got to his feet, feeling disgusted and filthy, and made for his own room. Raven was right. He needed a shower.

His room was just as he’d left it, and the shower felt restorative. He glanced at his watch as he put it back on his wrist. It was off by nearly half an hour. He ran his fingers over the smooth glass and then re-set the time. It had been the time he’d spent in the house with young-Charles and Raven. He closed his eyes. He might even have stayed with them, had Charles already been safe. He could have helped them grow up, guided them.

Plus, Erik would have known just where Shaw would have been, and been able to lay traps, and make plans. What an opportunity he had wasted!

Erik left his bedroom and went to Charles’ room. He knocked and was rewarded with “Come in!” and he did. He closed the door behind him.

Raven and Charles, each freshly showered, sat on the bed.

“We were just talking,” Charles said, with the smallest, saddest smile.

Erik moved a chair from the outer perimeter to next to the bed and sat in it, steepling his fingers. “I think the threat has been removed,” he said.

Charles laughed. “Oh, yes, Erik. Quite.”

Erik frowned. “But we can’t be sure.”

“I can be sure,” Charles said quietly. He and Raven exchanged a glance. “There aren’t any children here anymore, Erik. There’s nothing for it to kidnap.”

“But it took you--”

Charles shifted on the bed and looked down at his hands, which were held stiffly interlaced. “It won’t happen again. If it could have gotten us back, it would have done so last night. You barred it entry from the house, and I expect that your seal will prevail for as long as that door stays closed.”

Something didn’t ring quite true to Erik and he narrowed his eyes, ready to argue, but Raven touched him lightly on the shoulder.

“It’s over,” she said. “It’s gone.”

Erik swung his attention to her. “You were good,” he said. “Great. Thank you for saving our lives.”

“You’re welcome,” Raven said, blushing, and averting her gaze.

“She did, didn’t she?” Charles said and he took one of her hands in his own. “You rescued us both. Especially Erik. The creature was going to kill him and you saved him. Raven, you were so brilliant. So perfectly inspired.”

Raven went even more pink.

Erik broke the awkward moment by asking, “How did you know to do that? To fool it by being another monster? And while we’re at it, how did you know what to say to it? How long we had to escape?”

“After you vanished into the gloom, I just waited for you,” Raven said. “You weren’t gone more than five minutes, really, and then the door opened.” She clasped her hands together, wringing her fingers around, and Erik knew that those five minutes must have been some of the hardest she’d ever had to endure. “And I just jumped in with my monster form.”

“But how did you know that it would work?” Erik asked. With the danger behind him, his curiosity and fascination were flaring. He wanted to _understand_ this. If it happened once, it might happen again. Somewhere, far back in his head, was the very faintest thought that one day Charles or Raven might have their own children here, and he wanted them to be safe. He didn’t entirely trust that his locking and sealing of the door would prevent a bogeyman determined to carry off another victim.

“You must have read the stories,” Raven said, but when she looked at him, he shook his head. “No?” She giggled. “Charles only reads about genetics, anyway.”

“I read other things!” Charles protested. “I have a very wide reading selection.”

“Of course you do,” Raven said and patted him on the knee.

“What stories?” Erik prompted her, trying to get her back to the topic. “It seems I will need to expand my own reading.”

“All the fairytales,” Raven said. “After we got away the first time, I read everything I could find. If it was some kind of folklore, I devoured it. The stories all have the same sorts of themes. Warnings and darkness, and the vulnerability of little children. The rules that the monsters must abide by. Well, some of them. The cold iron didn’t seem to work on _it_.”

“No,” Erik said. “But the others things, those all were true.”

“Midnight,” Raven said with a nod. “And being able to rescue someone before a time limit is up. And that the monsters have rules for who they take, and who they don’t. Usually, at least. And what forces are stronger than the monsters.”

“You did all that reading, just in case it came back?” Charles asked her. “I just always thought you enjoyed those sorts of stories.”

“No, not at all.” Raven shuddered. “Maybe I should have, but after it took us, it wasn’t something daring and exciting. It frightened me. I remember being so alone and then you and Erik….” She frowned. “And Erik?”

“Me,” said Erik.

“Erik! You were there! That was you!” Raven hopped off the bed and went eye-level with Erik as if she’d never seen him before. “You carried me on your back! The whole way through the darkness, to the door! And you made us hot chocolate, and then Charles’ mother--” She drew up straight. “That was you!”

“Yes, me,” Erik agreed. “Except for me, that was last night.”

“And for us, it was nearly twenty years ago,” Charles said. “I remember, too.”

“Why didn’t I remember before?” Raven said. “I wrote you letters,” she said and then looked sheepish. “How embarrassing.” She covered her face with her hands.

Erik grinned. “Letters?”

“Just silly things. Thank you and please come back. You told me you thought I was beautiful when I was blue.”

“It’s true. You are.”

“You don’t even know how much that meant to me,” she said.

“I think I can guess a little,” Erik said.

“You saved us,” Raven said again and looked at him with shocked eyes, as if she couldn’t quite believe it. “How did I not even know it was you?” She threw herself forward and hugged him, and Erik hugged her back, remembering how small she’d been, how incredibly brave, and he supposed that had never changed about her at all. She pulled back. “Now what?” she asked.

“Breakfast, I would think,” Charles said. “I don’t know about either of you, but I’m famished. Dinner feels like it was weeks ago.”

Raven made a strangled sound and Erik caught himself from making a noise. Perhaps it had been weeks ago. Time certainly didn’t make much sense when caught in the shadowman’s domain. “I’ll go see what’s in the kitchen,” Raven said, flashing her eyes at Erik, and he knew she was gracefully leaving them alone to talk. She gave him another swift hug, and then one to her brother. “Charles, don’t ever scare me like that again. Please.”

Charles hugged her back, closing his eyes tightly, and Erik looked away. Last night had created raw edges inside him where Raven and Charles were concerned. To have seen them as such young, vulnerable children…so frightened, and so brave. He’d never really cared for anyone else, least of all children, and had thought his capacity for such emotions burned out of him. Perhaps there was more left to him than he’d originally thought. Erik took a long, slow, deep breath as Raven left the room.

“Don’t take too long,” she said as she exited. “I’ll get the water boiling for tea.”

Erik and Charles stared at each other. Charles’ mouth curved up into a not-quite-smile.

“You said you thought you loved me,” Charles said at last, breaking the silence.

“And you told the monster that I did love you,” Erik countered.

“It was true,” Charles said. “Otherwise, it would never have let me go. Even with Raven telling it that all sorts of rules had been broken and to cease and desist.”

Erik frowned, puzzled by that. He shifted out of the chair he’d brought over and to the bed, where he sat next to Charles, thigh touching thigh. It was comfortable and warm. Erik sought around for something to say.

“So, your mother. What happened? She must have taken the bait?”

“Hook, line, and sinker,” Charles said. “She didn’t really adopt Raven, because they never could manage to find her original birth certificate, but it was as close as you could come legally. They issued her a new one, and she’s my real, true sister as far as I’m concerned. It was a good solution.”

“They accepted her? Into the family?”

“She never loved Raven,” Charles said, “if that’s what you mean. But she never loved me, either. We made do, I suppose, as so many families do. But my mother was always grateful to Raven, for, ahem, saving my life, as I told her. Mother was more than distressed about the kidnapping attempt. We had a lot more security after that, and a lot less freedom.”

“You probably knew that was coming.”

“It’s odd, though, that the true danger was one that she couldn’t have understood. Not a flesh-and-blood kidnapper. But a monster in the dark.”

Erik lifted his hand and brushed his fingers across Charles’ cheek. “She’s the one who put you in danger,” he said, because he’d finally, _finally_ , grasped the tenuous filaments. “Because she couldn’t love you, she unlocked the gate and let the monster in.”

Charles reached up a hand to grasp at Erik’s wrist. “And you locked him out.”

Erik turned his wrist to the side, bringing Charles’ hand with it. First he placed a soft kiss on the inside of Charles’ wrist, and then he leaned in, as easy as breathing, and kissed Charles. Charles sighed into him, kissing back.

“You don’t belong there,” Erik said. “You’re too much of the world, and I do love you entirely too much to let you go.”

“I love you too, you know,” Charles said.

“I know.” Erik brought his hands up, curling one around the nape of Charles’ neck, the edges of his fingers brushing against his silky-soft hair, and the other went round Charles’ waist and pulled him incrementally closer. Charles wrapped himself around Erik and, sitting on the bed, there wasn’t that much height difference at all. Erik just leaned in again and started kissing, the beginnings of what he hoped would be uncounted ones for years to come.

~~~


	5. Chapter 5

Charles sat in the hallway and stared at the door. Idly, he rubbed one hand along the wheel-grip of his wheelchair, and rocked back and forth. It was a comforting motion, as if he were once again in a cradle.

Hank came through the hallway, looking tired, and overworked. “Professor?” he asked. They’d all aged so much in a few months, and even though Hank was now larger, and more blue, Charles could hear the change in his voice. “I finished moving the furniture out of those rooms. We can either refinish the floors, or hire someone. Your choice.”

Charles nodded. He’d decided to open the north wing, finally. It was better suited for classrooms, and Charles was going ahead with his idea for having a school for mutants. A haven of safety.

“Did you need assistance with anything?” Hank asked. He turned to follow Charles’ gaze to the door. “I haven’t gotten to this room, yet,” he said, and moved forward to grasp the handle. It didn’t turn. “That’s odd,” he said. “It feels like it’s been fused together. It won’t even turn.” Hank squared his shoulders. “I can call a locksmith.”

“I don’t think a locksmith would help,” Charles said softly.

“Would you like me to break it down?” Hank asked, and he studied the door. “It’s probably oak, but I could go through it. Or the wall, and we could patch up the hole. Or I could find Alex.” Hank looked thoughtful. “Maybe Sean could fly in through a window.”

“No, no, that won’t be necessary.” Charles finally tore his eyes away from the door. “This room stays closed. It’s a bit flawed on the inside, and really not suitable for our needs. Ever.”

Hank nodded, accepting the mandate without questioning it. “Of course.”

Charles reached out a hand and took one of Hank’s. “Actually, I was thinking it might be best to wall it off. Hide it entirely. Less chance of anyone accidentally going through there.”

“If that’s what you want. It is your house, Charles,” Hank said. “But I doubt anyone will go in there if you tell them not to.”

“Not while I’m here,” Charles agreed. “But I hope this school will go on well beyond me. They might not remember.”

Hank sighed, and it was acquiescence enough.

Charles waited until Hank was gone. Then he stared up at the door. “I’m going to open a school,” he said out loud. “It’s going to be the sort of school where everyone can learn, and be safe, and hopefully where there will be a lot of love and affection. There are going to be a lot of children here. They’ll be coming from many different backgrounds and most of them aren’t going to know what it was like to be in a loving family. They’ll be scared and lost, and frightened because they’ll be mutants, with powers and abilities that seem overwhelming. It may take time for them to feel secure, and loved, because they never had been before. But I want them to be safe here, and to stay if they want to stay.”

Charles stopped. He had more to say, so much more, but what he’d said already was enough.

Then, Charles began to sing, in the quietest, whispering voice he could. “I want to be a sailor, sailing to the sea. No plough-boy, tinker, tailors, any fun to be.” Charles stopped. He didn’t know the rest. He supposed, with the door sealed, that it didn’t matter anyway.

“ _Dearheart, don’t be sad, sweet dearheart_.”

Charles gasped and gripped his wheels, the urge to flee nearly overcoming him. Yet, he had invited this, and he would see it through. He couldn’t have a school here, not without a truce.

The faintest of grey tendrils crept along the baseboard and flowed in from the crease where wall met ceiling. The hallway darkened, and then Charles felt strong arms wrap around him from behind, and a nearness pressed against his ear.

“ _What have they done to you? Dearheart, my brave little soul. They have broken you!_ ” Charles could hear the regretful wail and it tore at him, entirely too soon for him to have come to terms with his new condition.

“ _It was the wretched thief, was it not? That wicked, brazen, hateful one._ ”

“He didn’t mean it,” Charles said. “It was an accident.”

“ _Come home, dearheart. Come with me. I have so many little ones that were once broken, but there is dancing for all. They will be your newest friends, and will love you for all the days and nights that will ever exist. My arms are always open to you. And I know your heart, for you have always wanted to come home, and rest your weary head, and be my dearest friend. My special dearheart. I have waited so long for you, and you for I._ ”

“I can’t,” Charles said. “Not yet. I am creating a school.”

“ _A school for all the wounded hearts. I heard you speak, dearest of mine._ ”

“Yes. I wanted to ask—To ask you--” Charles fumbled. How could he request that none of the children be taken? None _invited_ to the very thing that Charles had desired for all his life? And yet, Charles had been denied.

“ _If you will love them, dearheart, then they will have no need of me, or the aid I render. And none know as well as I the depths of the love you possess. But I will always come for those that need me most, dearheart. As I will always come, when you are ready, call, and I will bring you into my arms, and I shall love you always._ ”

“Thank you,” Charles said. It was the best he could hope for. He couldn’t bar them all. There would always be children for whom the world was not a bright enough place, without even a single flame to burn for them.

“ _You have only to think of me, dearheart, and then shall I gather you to me, and finally you shall dance._ ”

The strong arms faded away, leaving Charles feeling bereft and alone, and then even that faint sense of _otherness_ was finally gone. Charles put his hand out and touched the wood of the door.

~~~

Charles looked down at his student, Jean. She was transforming before his very eyes, the burning within her too great to contain. She had lifted him into the air, and even though he tried to speak to her, she was far too gone. Charles only regretted that he would not survive this assault to be able to try and help her again, though his efforts had always been rudimentary, and never enough to truly heal. But he forgave himself this failure. He had always done his best. He only regretted that he hadn’t enough skill or knowledge to be better at it, to actually succeed. The fault would have been in never trying to help, never making the attempt in the first place.

Erik was just beyond the room, and could see him. Already, Charles could feel his body whisping away. It was oddly painful, and yet, not.

Erik was screaming for him, and Charles was glad that Erik was not the one to feel the wrath of the heartsick girl that they had both been so unqualified to help.

At the last, Charles thought of his friends, family, and his home. And wished that perhaps now, he could finally be dancing.

~~~

“ _At last, at last, little dearheart! How I have longed for you to join with me, and now we shall dance together!_ ”

Charles slowly blinked open his eyes. There was blue sky open above him, and someone was trailing their fingers through his hair. He sat up and strong arms enveloped him from behind.

“ _Little dearheart, finally! Brush away that dust, stand up, stand up, and come with me. There’s dancing in the field, and the valley, and the woods. Where shall we start first? An apple orchard? Or with the trout in the stream?_ ”

“Where am I?” Charles asked. The last he remembered, he’d been pulled apart at the seams and all his stuffing had come out.

“ _With me, always with me. You bade me wait for you, and I have saved a place for you, always, always, you. Sweetest dearheart, mine.”_

Then Charles remembered. Slowly, ever so cautiously, he got to his feet. He stretched out his arms and stared at his fingers. He lifted his feet and stared at his toes. “I’m small again,” he said, trying to figure out how that had happened. There was a hopping, happy bit of energy just behind him, and Charles turned to see it. It was a swirl of darkness, with flashes of eyes and fingers, and a tail. Of course, a tail. This was the bogeyman of the mansion, and at long last, Charles had accepted that final invitation.

“ _Of course you are. You came to visit only twice, and I so much prefer this version than the other. But you can have the other form, if it pleases you more. But won’t you come and play? The others are waiting. They’ve waited so long for you. Did I not promise you treats? And songs, and running, and dancing? Dearheart, you are finally here, and finally mine, and it is time._ ”

Charles stared down at his feet again and laughed, and the sound spurred the bogeyman to swirl with even greater delight. He wrapped his arms around Charles again, a hug of enveloping proportions.

“ _Run with me, dearheart. Run far and wide. There’s a dance at the edge of the stream, and all the other little ones are waiting for you. Friends, each and every one, but I’ll dance with you first, dearheart. My dearest, my loveliest._ ”

The bogeyman released the hug and Charles broke into a sprint, the grass soft beneath his feet, the sunshine warm on his skin, and he could hear the sound of children playing nearby.

~~~

Charles had no sense of time in the bogeyman’s domain. He only knew he had been there for a long, long time, and that it had taken him his entire life to finally wind his way here. He loved his friends, and every day was as perfect as he wanted it to be. He had forgotten so much of the troubles he had endured—the memories were distant shadows that he did not like to bring up, not when there were always races to run, and trees to climb, and good things to eat.

The bogeyman kept every promise ever made, and he danced with Charles each night, and there were bonfires that reached up to the stars. In the mornings, the birds would sing, and adventure would start again. He climbed trees and ate apples, plucked pumpkins from patches, and frogs from ponds. There were horses to ride, and caves to explore, corn fields to hide in, and sometimes a pirate ship would sail in the distance, for those whose souls were taken with the sea. There was a library so large that Charles got lost in it every time, and every book he wished for was tucked away somewhere. When he was tired, there was always a place to curl up, and when he was hungry, there was always something tasty to find.

The only thing that ever troubled Charles was an ache he had in his heart. He rubbed at his chest one day, feeling the ache growing stronger.

“Are you hurt?” asked Elspeth, the friend that liked to accompany Charles to the library. She hoarded raspberries in her pockets and would eat them as she read, curled up in the window seats, with the library cat warm on her feet. “You look like you’re in pain.”

“I don’t know,” Charles said. “I have an ache in my heart.”

Elspeth looked worried. “Have you told him?” she asked. “He would never want you to be hurt.”

Charles shook his head. Though the bogeyman would lift him high, take him flying, and dance with him around the bonfires at night, Charles didn’t have the courage to mention this ache. He believed that there wasn’t anything to be done about it. It was one of those shadowed, lost memories from the Time Before.

“He’s coming now!” Elspeth said, and she smiled. “He heard you.”

Charles turned to look, still absently rubbing his chest, where the ache was steadily growing stronger. The swirl of darkness and smoke was then all around him, hugging and cradling, and trying to soothe.

“ _Dearheart mine, what is the matter?_ ”

“I don’t know,” Charles told him. “It’s hurts here, in my heart.”

“ _Let me see, let me see, littlest dearheart._ ” Tendrils of inky blackness reached for Charles, wrapping around him, and Charles gasped—an old memory coming to the surface, of a man on the floor, being attacked, _so frightened_ \--and the bogeyman twirled himself up tight again, like the string on a kite being brought down from the skies.

“ _My little, troublemaking dearheart. You make me follow you on such a dizzy path! But of course, I can solve this. Do you think you can be brave? I will have to show you something terrible. And how it will end, will depend all on you, little dearheart. You must be very, very brave._ ”

Charles could see that Elspeth’s eyes had grown wide, and a raspberry was crushed under her foot, staining the wooden floor. He summoned all the strength he could. Whatever this was, he needed to take care of it, lest he ache and ache, even when he shouldn’t. “I will be.”

The bogeyman reached out his arms and grasped Charles and then there was a whirlwind of grey and Charles was at a door. He looked it over carefully. He knew this door.

“ _Do not let go of my hand, dearheart. For if you do, you will be lost, and I shan’t ever be able to retrieve you. And since you are only here because I grabbed the very last echoes of you, if you let go, you’ll be gone for good._ ”

Charles nodded and took the bogeyman’s hand, and they slipped like ghosts through the wood door with the metal seal. The bogeyman brought him to a room—his old room from long, long ago—and Charles could see that there was a man in the bed. He was very frail, ancient and grey. His eyes were closed and he was sleeping. Charles knew him instantly, and the ache in his heart doubled.

“ _He is dying, little dearheart. At the end of his days. He’s lived far more allotment than most mortal men, and traveled the world, and seen good and bad. In a few minutes, he will cease to be. These are his last breaths. I never invited him, little dearheart. He was always too well-loved, too-much desired, or filled with purpose, to ever need me. But I invited you, and he followed you into the darkness, where he thought death itself was waiting for him. It is enough, I think, to bring him back with us. But you must be the one to invite him, and he must accept it. Hurry now, there are only moments left._ ”

Charles reached out and touched the man on the arm. “Erik, please wake up.”

Erik opened his eyes and even though the shell around him had grown weary and dry, his eyes still contained the intensity that Charles remembered from those long ago years. “Charles?” he asked. “Am I dead? How are you here? Why are you twelve again?” Erik tried to push himself to move closer, but he couldn’t manage the strength to do it. “They let me come, your students,” he said. “To come here at the last. I’ve missed you. And they were so forgiving, all your students, to let me come here to expire, as near to you as I could get.”

Charles held out his hand. “Come with me,” he asked. “Please, please, come with me.”

“I can’t, Charles. I’m dying.” Erik didn’t even try to move this time.

Charles bit his lip and looked to the bogeyman. “Can you move him for me?”

“ _He must say yes. But I shall carry him.”_

“Do you love me, Erik?” Charles asked, begging, pleading. “Just say you’ll come with me. One last time? Say yes, please say yes. For once, do not be stubborn!”

~~~

“I have always loved you, Charles. Yes. Whatever you want, yes,” Erik said, wearily. He was imagining things. Charles was here and he was young again, and there was nothing Erik could give to this ghostly Charles. He had given all he had over the years to his cause, a steady drip-drip of his life’s blood, and energy, and vibrancy. But whatever Charles wanted, he could not say no.

“Oh, Erik! Thank you!”

Then suddenly, Erik was ensconced in blackness and lifted high, and moving through the room. He could hear the several telepaths in the house exclaim alarm—they had all been monitoring him, whether out of pity for his final state, or worry that he would actually still just bring down the house with his mutant powers, he didn’t know or care, but they had all been keeping a watch on him. He could feel the mobilization orders, given to other mutants in the house, to attend to him, and…rescue. How wonderful, and ever foolish, all of Charles’ children could be.

Erik realized where he’d been taken a moment later. It was the north wing, and the corridor where the door had once been, now slotted over with drywall and paint. Erik blinked, and the darkness that had carried him suddenly evolved into an inky, merciless form.

“Shadowman,” Erik said. “Have you finally come back to finish me off?” No wonder he’d been dreaming of Charles as a young boy. The memories of that had become vague over the years, but Erik still remembered the fight, and how the bogeyman had nearly killed him. Even with the monster in front of him, strong and dangerous, Erik didn’t have enough energy to fight it anymore. Charles—his friend—was long gone, and his students could more than take care of themselves.

“ _No, Heartthief, my wretched bandit. I’ve come to take you home._ ”

With that, Erik realized that the bogeyman had moved child-Charles and himself all the way through the wall, and the door, and his metal seals. “You never heeded those, did you?” Erik asked, even as the furious yelling and ordering of the mansion’s telepaths were cut off, and went silent.

“ _I heeded the intent far more than the flimsy blockades, wild bandit of mine. Now, go and play with your friend. He has an ache in his heart. Heal it and keep him well, lest I require you no more._ ”

The shadowman dumped him on the ground unceremoniously, and Erik recoiled—his bones were so brittle now, this would ruin him for sure—and then he sort of bounced and Erik realized that he wasn’t old. He was young again. Not quite as young as Charles, but his skin was smooth, and his muscles strong, and his balance sure. Erik stood up, and reached out with his powers. Metal everywhere, waiting to be called.

“Please,” he heard Charles saying, “I need the other me, the older me.”

Erik turned and there was Charles, grown up. “He said you were hurt.”

Charles put a hand over his heart and gave Erik a smile. “Not anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
> 1) The story passage is from A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett  
> 2) The little songs Charles sings are first a traditional, and the second one is from _The Thief of Bagdad_ (1940)

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILER WARNINGS:
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> Technically, there is main character death. However, one is Charles' canon death in X3. The other is Magneto when he is really, really old. And then I fix-it so they aren't really, exactly quite dead. And it is as happy an ending as you can get when you have two mortal characters.


End file.
